I used mostly Koh-i-noor woodless Progresso (HB to 8B) pencils and a few harder Mars Lumograph. For blending I used small blending stumps and paper tissue. Erasers were a kneadable eraser and a Faber Castell Perfection Eraser pencil.

Anna Lee Fisher is an American chemist and NASA astronaut who in 1984 became the first mother to be sent into space, on the Discovery space shuttle. The photograph I used as reference was i.imgur.com/IQdbd.jpg.

That I should make a drawing from this photo, by Scott Bryson, published in Life magazine in May 1985, was a suggestion from one of my watchers, alsalegend , who thought it would be ‘right up my street’. I set about obtaining permission from the photographer, Scott Bryson, and I thank him for giving this.

I know that many people have already made drawings from this photo, but I decided to do so as well because Anna has such a lovely profile which is beautifully lit in high contrast in the photo. I have drawn very few high contrast drawings, so this was a bit of a challenge for me.

I have made a change to the original photograph in that I have removed the reflection of the photographer, tripod and camera, which in my opinion, coming down from the corner of her eye, slightly spoiled the picture. There are other reflections that still give clues to the presence of the glazing on the helmet.

This is one of my favorite pictures from our manned space program... rendered beautifully. Very faithful to the photo, which was taken at exactly the right place, at exactly the right time. Wonderful work, LateStarter... just wonderful.

Thank you very much. As you say the photo is just wonderful: her gaze into infinity' the lighting bringing out her beautiful profile and the reflection of another space-suited figure in her visor . I think that it is a pity the same light that revealed the other figure in reflection also illuminated the photographer's tripod, hence my removal of this from my drawing.

As you will no doubt have seen from other drawings of mine, I have rather an obsession with detail! I have not drawn sketches, such as your 'In Love' sketch since I joined dA, except for at the life class that I go to and timed 'virtual life classes' on the Internet to keep my hand/eye in over the between-term breaks. I see that you use a variety of media an styles. I can do just the one thing - copy photos in graphite.